Create a new Plugin

With the introduction of the gradle build system (Freeplane >= 1.4.1), the "create-plugin" ant task is deprecated because adding plugins "manually" has become very simple using gradle.

Steps

Here are the steps you need to perform:

  • choose a short name for your plugin (e.g. freeplane_plugin_foo, the name freeplane_plugin_* is mandatory)
  • include the plugin in settings.gradle
  • create freeplane_plugin_foo/build.gradle by copying the build.gradle from any other plugin (freeplane_plugin_latex freeplane_plugin_openmaps are quite simple)
  • add third-party dependencies (dependencies section) and OSGi imports (packages you need from core/other plugins) to your build.gradle
    • if your third-party dependencies are not available in maven.org, uses files() and commit them to version control (freeplane_plugin_foo/lib)
  • create freeplane_plugin_foo/src/main/java/org/freeplane/plugin/foo/Activator.java by copying from another plugin and then removing things you don't need
  • TODO: need to adapt eclipse launcher?
  • test your plugin by building and running freeplane
  • when committing, make sure not to commit .project / .classpath files as they are generated by gradle

Add options to the OptionPanel

The core plugins register their options via the configuration file freeplane/resources/xml/preferences.xml. Plugins can do it quite similar by defining their own preferences.xml (by convention in freeplane_plugin_/org/freeplane/plugin//preferences.xml); here from the script plugin (the latex plugin is also a good example):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<preferences_structure>
   <tabbed_pane>
      <tab name="plugins">
         <separator name="scripting">
            <boolean name="execute_scripts_without_asking" />
            <boolean name="execute_scripts_without_file_restriction" />
            <boolean name="execute_scripts_without_network_restriction" />
            <boolean name="execute_scripts_without_exec_restriction" />
            <boolean name="signed_script_are_trusted" />
            <string name="script_user_key_name_for_signing" />
            <string name="script_directories" />
         </separator>
      </tab>
   </tabbed_pane>
</preferences_structure>

The option names have to be added to Resource_en.properties (excerpt):

OptionPanel.execute_scripts_without_asking = Scripts should be carried out without confirmation?
OptionPanel.execute_scripts_without_asking.tooltip = <html>Freeplane scripts are principally able...
OptionPanel.execute_scripts_without_exec_restriction = Permit to Execute other Applications (NOT recommended)

For an example of how options can be registered at the option panel see org.freeplane.plugin.script.ScriptingRegistration:

private void addPropertiesToOptionPanel() {
    final URL preferences = this.getClass().getResource("preferences.xml");
    if (preferences == null)
        throw new RuntimeException("cannot open preferences");
    modeController.getOptionPanelBuilder().load(preferences);
}

The options can be queried like this:

String executeWithoutAsking = ResourceController.getResourceController()
    .getProperty("execute_scripts_without_asking");

Register Actions

Please see OpenMapsRegistration.java in the freeplane_plugin_openmaps plugin.

Register Icon Mouse click listener

Please see OpenMapsRegistration.java in the freeplane_plugin_openmaps plugin.